Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 362, December 1845

CHAPTER II

 
"There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust;
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment; and against this fire
Do I shrink up."
 

Shakspeare.

 
"Ambition is a great man's madness,
That is not kept in chains and close-pent rooms
But in fair lightsome lodgings, and is girt
With the wild noise of prattling visitants,
Which makes it lunatic beyond all cure."
 

Webster.

In a room belonging to the lower apartments of the old palace of the Louvre, reclined, in one of the large but incommodious chairs of the time, a young man, whose pale, haggard face, and prematurely furrowed brow, betrayed deep suffering both from moral and physical causes. The thick lids of his heavy dark eyes closed over them with languor, as if he no longer possessed the force to open them; whilst his pale thin lips were distorted as if with pain. His whole air bore the stamp of exhaustion of mind and body.

The dress of this personage was dark and of an extreme plainness and simplicity, in times when the fashion of attire demanded so much display – it bore somewhat the appearance of a hunting costume. The room, on the contrary, betrayed a strange mixture of great richness and luxury with much confusion and disorder. The hangings of the doors were of the finest stuffs, and embroidered with gold and jewellery; tapestry of price covered the walls. A raised curtain of heavy and costly tissue discovered a small oratory, in which were visible a crucifix and other religious ornaments of great value. But in the midst of this display of wealth and greatness, were to be seen the most incongruous objects. Beneath a bench in a corner of the room was littered straw, on which lay several young puppies; in other choice nooks slept two or three great hounds. Hunting horns were hung against the tapestry, or lay scattered on the floor; an arquebuss rested against the oratory door-stall – the instrument of death beside the retreat of religious aspiration. Upon a standing desk, in the middle of the room, lay a book, the coloured designs of which showed that it treated of the "noble science of venerye," whilst around its pages hung the beads of a chaplet. Against the wall of the room opposite the reclining young man, stood one of the heavy chests used at that period for seats, as much as depositories of clothes and other objects; but the occupant of this seat was a strange one. It was a large ape, the light brown colour of whose hair bordered so much upon the green as to give the animal, in certain lights, a perfectly verdant aspect. It sat "moping and mowing" in sulky loneliness, as if its grimaces were intended to caricature the expression of pain which crossed the young man's face – a strange distorted mirror of that suffering form.

After a time the young man moved uneasily, as if he had in vain sought in sleep some repose from the torment of mind and body, and snapped his fingers. His hounds came obedient to his call; but, after patting them for a moment on the head, he again drove them from him with all the pettish ill-temper of ennui, and rose, feebly and with difficulty, from his chair. He moved languidly to the open book, looked at it for a moment, then shook his head and turned away. Again he took up one of the hunting horns and applied it to his lips; but the breath which he could fetch from his chest produced no sound but a sort of low melancholy whine from the instrument; and he flung it down. Then dealing a blow at the head of the grinning ape, who first dived to avoid it, and then snapped at its master's fingers, he returned wearily to his chair, and sunk into it with a deep groan, which told of many things – regret – bitter ennui – physical pain and mental anguish. The tears rose for a moment to his heavy languid eyes, but he checked their influence with a sneer of his thin upper-lip; then calling "Congo," to his ape, he made the animal approach and took it on his knees; and the two – the man and the beast – grinned at each other in bitter mockery.

In this occupation of the most grotesque despair, the young man was disturbed by another personage, who, raising the tapestry over a concealed door, entered silently and unannounced.

"My Mother!" murmured the sufferer, in a tone of impatience, as he became aware of the presence of this person; and turning away his head, he began to occupy himself in caressing his ape.

"How goes it with you, Charles? Do you feel stronger now?" said the mother, in a soft voice of the fondest cajolery, as she advanced with noiseless, gliding steps.

The son gave no reply, and continued to play with the animal upon his knee, whilst a dark frown knitted his brow.

"What say the doctors to your state to-day, my son?" resumed the female soothingly. As she approached still nearer, the ape, with a movement of that instinctive hate often observable in animals towards persons who do not like them, sprang at her with a savage grin, that displayed its sharp teeth, and would have bitten her hand had she not started back in haste. Her cold physiognomy expressed, however, neither anger nor alarm, as she quietly remarked to her son —

"Remove that horrid animal, Charles: see how savage he is?"

"And why should I remove Congo, mother?" rejoined Charles, with a sneer upon his lip; "he is the only friend you have left me."

"Sickness makes you forgetful and unjust, my son," replied the Mother.

"Yes, the only friend you have left me," pursued the son bitterly, "except my poor dogs. Have you not so acted in my name, that you have left me not one kindred soul to love me; that in the whole wide kingdom of France, there remains not a voice, much less a heart, to bless its miserable king?"

"If you say that you have no friends," responded the Queen-mother, "you may speak more truly than you would. For they are but false friends; and real enemies, who have instilled into your mind the evil thoughts of a mother, who has worked only for your glory and your good."

"No, not one," continued the young King, unheeding her, but dismissing at the same time the ape from his knee with a blow that sent him screaming and mouthing to his accustomed seat upon the chest. "Not one! Where is Perotte, my poor old nurse? She loved me – she was a real mother to me. She! And where is she now? Did not that deed of horror, to which you counselled me, to which you urged me almost by force – that order, which, on the fatal night of St Bartholomew, gave signal for the massacre of all her co-religionists, drive her from my side? Did she not curse me – me, who at your instigation caused the blood of her friends and kindred to be shed – and leave me, her nursling, her boy, her Charlot, whom she loved till then, with that curse upon her lips? And do they not say that her horror of him who has sucked her milk, and lain upon her bosom, and of his damning deed, has frenzied her brain, and rendered her witless? Poor woman!" And the miserable King buried his haggard face between his hands.

"She was a wretched Huguenot, and no fitting companion and confidant for a Catholic and a king," said the Queen, in a tone of mildness, which contrasted strangely with the harshness of her words. "You should return thanks to all the blessed Saints, that she has willingly renounced that influence about your person, which could tend only to endanger the salvation of your soul."

"My soul! Ay! who has destroyed it?" muttered Charles in a hollow tone.

The Queen-mother remained silent, but an unusual fire, in which trouble was mixed with scorn and anger, shot from her eyes.

"And have you not contrived to keep Henry of Navarre, my honest Henry, from my presence?" pursued the young King, after a pause, lifting up his heavy head from between his hands. "He was the only being you had left me still to love me; for my brothers hate me, both Anjou and Alençon – both wish me dead, and would wear my crown. And who was it, and for her own purposes, curdled the blood of the Valois in their veins until it rankled into a poison that might have befitted the Atrides of the tragedies of old? Henry of Navarre was the only creature that loved me still, and your policy and intrigues, madam, keep him from me, and so watch and harass his very steps in my own palace of the Louvre, where he is my guest, that never can I see him alone, or speak to him in confidence. He, too, deserts and neglects me now; and I am alone – alone, madam, with courtiers and creatures, who hate me too, it may be – alone, as a wretched orphan beggar by the way-side."

"My policy, as well as what you choose to call my intrigues, my son," rejoined the Queen, "have ever been directed to your interests and welfare. You are aware that Henry of Navarre has conspired against the peace of our realm, against your crown, may-be against your life. Would you condemn that care which would prevent the renewal of such misdeeds, when your own sister – when his wife – leagues herself in secret with your enemies!"

"Ay! Margaret too!" muttered Charles with bitterness. "Was the list of the Atrides not yet complete?"

"The dictates of my love and affection, of my solicitude for my son, and for his weal – such have been the main-springs of my intrigues," pursued the mother in a cajoling tone.

"The intrigues of the house of Medicis!" murmured the King, with a mocking laugh.

"What would you have me to do more, my son?" continued the Queen-mother.

"Nothing," replied Charles, "nothing but leave me – leave me, as others have done, to die alone!"

"My son, I will leave you shortly, and if it so please our Blessed Virgin, to a little repose, and a better frame of mind," said Catherine of Medicis. "But I came to speak to you of matters of weight, and of such deep importance that they brook no delay."

"I am unfitted for all matters of state – my head is weary, my limbs ache, my heart burns with a torturing fire – I cannot listen to you now, madam," pursued the King languidly; and then, seeing that his mother still stood motionless by his side, he added with more energy – "Am I then no more a king, madam, that, at my own command, I cannot even be left to die in peace?"

"It is of your health, your safety, your life, that I would speak," continued Catherine of Medicis, unmoved. "The physicians have sought in vain to discover the real sources of the cruel malady that devours you; but there is no reason to doubt of your recovery, when the cause shall be known and removed."

"And you, madam, should know, it would appear, better than my physicians the hidden origin of my sufferings!" said Charles, in a tone in which might be remarked traces of the bitterest irony. "Is it not so?" and he looked upon his mother with a deadly look of suspicion and mistrust.

The Queen-mother started slightly at these words; but, after a moment, she answered in her usual bland tone of voice —

"It is my solicitude upon this subject that now brings me hither."

"I thank you for your solicitude," replied the King, with the same marked manner; "and so, doubtless, does my brother Anjou: you love him well, madam, and he is the successor of his childish brother."

In spite of the command over herself habitually exercised by Catherine of Medicis, her pale brow grew paler still, and she slightly compressed her lips, to prevent their quivering, upon hearing the horrible insinuation conveyed in these words. The suspicions prevalent at the time, that the Queen-mother had employed the aid of a slow poison to rid herself of a son who resisted her authority, in order to make room upon the throne for another whom she loved, had reached her ears, and, guilty or guiltless, she could not but perceive that her own son himself was not devoid of these suspicions. After the struggle of a moment with herself, however, during which the drops of perspiration stood upon her pale temples, she resumed —

"I love my children all; and I would save your life, Charles. My ever-watchful affection for you, my son, has discovered the existence of a hellish plot against your life."

"More plots, more blood! – what next, madam?" interrupted, with a groan, the unhappy King.

"What the art of the physician could not discover," pursued his mother, "I have discovered. The strange nature of this unknown malady – these pains, this sleeplessness, this agony of mind and body, without a cause, excited my suspicions; and now I have the proofs in my own hands. My son, my poor son! you have been the victim of the foulest witchcraft and sorcery of your enemies."

"Enemies abroad! enemies at home!" cried Charles, turning himself uneasily in his chair. "Did I not say so, madam?"

"But the vile sorcerer has been discovered by the blessed intervention of the saints," continued Catherine; "and let him be once seized, tried, and executed for his abominable crime, your torments, my son, will cease for ever. You will live to be well, strong, happy."

"Happy!" echoed the young King with bitterness; "happy! no, there the sorcery has gone too far for remedy." He then added after a pause, "And what is this plot? who is this sorcerer of whom you speak?"

"Trouble not yourself with these details, my son; they are but of minor import," replied Catherine. "You are weak and exhausted. The horrid tale would too much move your mind. Leave every thing in my hands, and I will rid you of your enemies."

"No, no. There has been enough of ill," resumed her son. "That he should be left in peace is all the miserable King now needs."

"But your life, my son. The safety of the realm depends upon the extermination of the works of the powers of darkness. Would you, a Catholic Prince, allow the evil-doer of the works of Satan to roam about at will, and injure others as he would have destroyed his king?" pursued the Queen-mother.

"Well, we will speak more of this at another opportunity. Leave me now, madam, for I am very weak both in mind and body; and I thank you for your zeal and care."

"My son, I cannot leave you," persisted Catherine, "until you shall have signed this paper." She produced from the species of reticule suspended at her side a parchment already covered with writing. "It confers upon me full power to treat in this affair, and bring the offender to condign punishment. You shall have no trouble in this matter; and through your mother's care, your enemies shall be purged from the earth, and you yourself once more free, and strong and able shortly to resume the helm of state, to mount your horse, to cheer on your hounds. Come, my son, sign this paper."

"Leave me – leave me in peace," again answered Charles. "I am sick at heart, and I would do no ill even to my bitterest enemy, be he only an obscure sorcerer, who has combined with the prince of darkness himself to work my death."

"My son – it cannot be," said Catherine, perseveringly – for she was aware that by persisting alone could she weary her son to do at last her will. "Sign this order for prosecuting immediately the trial of the sorcerer. It is a duty you owe to your country, for which you should live, as much as to yourself. Come!" and, taking him by the arm, she attempted to raise him from his chair.

"Must I ever be thus tormented, even in my hours of suffering?" said the King with impatience. "Well, be it so, madam. Work your will, and leave me to my repose."

He rose wearily from his chair, and going to a table on which were placed materials for writing, hastily signed the paper laid before him by his mother; and then, fetching a deep respiration of relief, like a school-boy after the performance of some painful task, he flung himself on to the chest beside the ape, and, turning his back to his mother, began to make his peace with the sulky animal.

Catherine of Medicis permitted a cold smile of satisfaction to wander over her face; and after greeting again her son, who paid her no more heed than might be expressed by an impatient shrug of the shoulders, indicative of his desire to be left in peace, again lifted the hangings, and passed through the concealed door. The suffering King, whose days of life were already numbered, and fast approaching their utmost span, although his years were still so few, remained again alone with his agony and his ennui.

Behind the door by which the Queen-mother had left her son's apartment was a narrow stone corridor, communicating with a small winding staircase, by which she mounted to her own suite of rooms upon the first floor; but, when she had gained the summit, avoiding the secret entrance opening into her own chamber, she proceeded along one of the many hidden passages by which she was accustomed to gain not only those wings of the palace inhabited by her different children, but almost every other part of the building, unseen and unannounced. Stopping at last before a narrow door, forming a part of the stone-work of the corridor, she pulled it towards her, and again lifting up a tapestry hanging, entered, silently and stealthily, a small room, which appeared a sort of inner cabinet to a larger apartment. She was about to pass through it, when some papers scattered upon a table caught her eye, and moving towards them with her usual cat-like step, she began turning them over with the noiseless adroitness of one accustomed to such an employment. Presently, however, she threw them down, as if she had not found in them, at once, what she sought, or was fearful of betraying her presence to the persons whose voices might be heard murmuring in the adjoining room; and, advancing with inaudible tread, she paused to listen for a minute. The persons, however, spoke low; and finding that her espionage profited nothing to her, the royal spy passed on and entered the apartment.

In a chair, turning his back to her, sat a young man at a table, upon which papers and maps were mixed with jewellery, articles of dress, feathers and laces. A pair of newly-fashioned large gilt spurs lay upon a manuscript which appeared to contain a list of names; a naked rapier, the hilt of which was of curious device and workmanship, was carelessly thrust through a paper covered with notes of music. The whole formed a strange mixture, indicative at once of pre-occupation and listless insouciance, of grave employment and utter frivolity. Before this seated personage stood another, who appeared to be speaking to him earnestly and in low tones. At the sight of Catherine, as she advanced, however, the latter person exclaimed quickly,

"My lord duke, her majesty the Queen-mother!"

The other person rose hastily, and in some alarm, from his chair; whilst his companion took this opportunity to increase the confusion upon the table, by pushing one or two other papers beneath some of the articles of amusement or dress.

Without any appearance of remarking the embarrassment that was pictured upon the young man's face, Catherine advanced to accept his troubled greeting with a mild smile of tenderness, and said —

"Alençon, my son, I have a few matters of private business, upon which I would confer with you – and alone."

The increasing embarrassment upon the face of the young Duke must have been visible to any eye but that which did not choose to see it. After a moment's hesitation, however, in which the habit of obeying implicitly his mother's authority seemed to subdue his desire to avoid a conference with her, he turned and said unwillingly to his companion,

"Leave us, La Mole."

The Duke's favourite cast a glance of encouragement and caution upon his master; and bowing to the Queen-mother, who returned his homage with her kindest and most re-assuring smile of courtesy and benevolence, and an affable wave of the hand, he left the apartment.

Catherine took the seat from which her son had risen; and leaving him standing before her in an attitude which ill-repressed trouble combined with natural awkwardness of manner to render peculiarly ungainly, she seemed to study for a time, and with satisfaction, his confusion and constraint. But then, begging him to be seated near her, she commenced speaking to him of various matters, of his own pleasures and amusements, of the newest dress, of the fêtes interrupted by the King's illness, of the effect which this illness, and the supposed danger of Charles, had produced upon the jarring parties in the state; of the audacity of the Huguenots, who now first began, since the massacre of St Bartholomew's day, again to raise their heads, and cause fresh disquietude to the government. And thus proceeding step by step to the point at which she desired to arrive, the wily Queen-mother resembled the cat, which creeps slowly onwards, until it springs at last with one bound upon its victim.

"Alas!" she said, with an air of profound sorrow, "so quickly do treachery and ingratitude grow up around us, that we no longer can discern who are our friends and who our enemies. We bestow favours; but it is as if we gave food to the dog, who bites our fingers as he takes it. We cherish a friend; and it is an adder we nurse in our bosoms. That young man who left us but just now, the Count La Mole – he cannot hear us surely;" – the Duke of Alençon assured her, with ill-concealed agitation, that his favourite was out of ear-shot – "that young man – La Mole! – you love him well, I know, my son; and you know not that it is a traitor you have taken to your heart."

"La Mole – a traitor! how? impossible!" stammered the young Duke.

"Your generous and candid heart comprehends not treachery in those it loves," pursued his mother; "but I have, unhappily, the proofs in my own power. Philip de la Mole conspires against your brother's crown."

The Duke of Alençon grew deadly pale; and he seemed to support himself with difficulty; but he stammered with faltering tongue,

"Conspires? how? for whom? Surely, madam, you are most grossly misinformed?"

"Unhappily, my son," pursued Catherine – "and my heart bleeds to say it – I have it no longer in my power to doubt."

"Madam, it is false," stammered again the young Duke, rising hastily from his chair, with an air of assurance which he did not feel. "This is some calumny."

"Sit down, my son, and listen to me for a while," said the Queen-mother with a bland, quiet smile. "I speak not unadvisedly. Be not so moved."

Alençon again sat down unwillingly, subdued by the calm superiority of his mother's manner.

"You think this Philip de la Mole," she continued, "attached solely to your interests, for you have showered upon him many and great favours; and your unsuspecting nature has been deceived. Listen to me, I pray you. Should our poor Henry never return from Poland, it would be yours to mount the throne of France upon the death of Charles. Nay, look not so uneasy. Such a thought, if it had crossed your mind, is an honest and a just one. How should I blame it? And now, how acts this Philip de la Mole – this man whom you have advanced, protected, loved almost as a brother? Regardless of all truth or honour, regardless of his master's fortunes, he conspires with friends and enemies, with Catholic and Huguenot, to place Henry of Navarre upon the throne!"

"La Mole conspires for Henry of Navarre! Impossible!" cried the Duke.

"Alas! my son, it is too truly as I say," pursued the Queen-mother; "the discoveries that have been made reveal most clearly the whole base scheme. Know you not that this upstart courtier has dared to love your sister Margaret, and that the foolish woman returns his presumptuous passion? It is she who has connived with her ambitious lover to see a real crown encircle her own brow. She has encouraged Philip de la Mole to conspire with her husband of Navarre, to grasp the throne of France upon the death of Charles. You are ignorant of this, my son; your honourable mind can entertain no such baseness. I am well aware that, had you been capable of harbouring a thought of treachery towards your elder brother – and I well know that you are not – believe me, the wily Philip de la Mole had rendered you his dupe, and blinded you to the true end of his artful and black designs."

"Philip a traitor!" exclaimed the young Duke aghast.

"A traitor to his king, his country, and to you, my son – to you, who have loved him but too well," repeated the Queen-mother.

"And it was for this purpose that he" – commenced the weak Duke of Alençon. But then, checking the words he was about to utter, he added, clenching his hands together – "Oh! double, double traitor!"

"I knew that you would receive the revelation of this truth with horror," pursued Catherine. "It is the attribute of your generous nature so to do; and I would have spared you the bitter pang of knowing that you have lavished so much affection upon a villain. But as orders will be immediately given for his arrest, it was necessary you should know his crime, and make no opposition to the seizure of one dependent so closely upon your person."

More, much more, did the artful Queen-mother say to turn her weak and credulous son to her will, and when she had convinced him of the certain treachery of his favourite, she rose to leave him, with the words —

"The guards will be here anon. Avoid him until then. Leave your apartment; speak to him not; or, if he cross your path, smile on him kindly, thus – and let him never read upon your face the thought that lurks within, 'Thou art a traitor.'"

Alençon promised obedience to his mother's injunctions.

"I have cut off thy right hand, my foolish son," muttered Catherine to herself as she departed by the secret door. "Thou art too powerless to act alone, and I fear thee now no longer. Margaret must still be dealt with; and thou, Henry of Navarre, if thou aspirest to the regency, the struggle is between thee and Catherine. Then will be seen whose star shines with the brightest lustre!"

When Philip de la Mole returned to his master's presence, he found the Duke pacing up and down the chamber in evident agitation; and the only reply given to his words was a smile of so false and constrained a nature, that it almost resembled a grin of mockery.

The Duke of Alençon was as incapable of continued dissimulation, as he was incapable of firmness of purpose; and when La Mole again approached him, he frowned sulkily, and, turning his back upon his favourite, was about to quit the room.

"Shall I accompany my lord duke?" said La Mole, with his usual careless demeanour, although he saw the storm gathering, and guessed immediately from what quarter the wind had blown, but not the awful violence of the hurricane.

"No – I want no traitors to dog my footsteps," replied Alençon, unable any longer to restrain himself, in spite of his mother's instructions.

"There are no traitors here," replied his favourite proudly. "I could have judged, my lord, that the Queen-mother had been with you, had I not seen her enter your apartment. Yes – there has been treachery on foot, it seems, but not where you would say. Speak boldly, my lord, and truly. Of what does she accuse me?"

"Traitor! double traitor!" exclaimed the Duke, bursting into a fit of childish wrath, "who hast led me on with false pretences of a Crown – who hast made me– thy master and thy prince – the dupe of thy base stratagems; who hast blinded me, and gulled me, whilst thy real design was the interest of another!"

"Proceed, my lord duke," said La Mole calmly. "Of what other does my lord duke speak?"

"Of Henry of Navarre, for whom you have conspired at Margaret's instigation," replied Alençon, walking uneasily up and down the room, and not venturing to look upon his accused favourite, as if he himself had been the criminal, and not the accuser.

"Ah! thither flies the bolt, does it?" said La Mole, with score. "But it strikes not, my lord. If I may claim your lordship's attention to these papers for a short space of time, I should need no other answer to this strange accusation, so strangely thrown out against me." And he produced from his person several documents concealed about it, and laid them before the Duke, who had now again thrown himself into his chair. "This letter from Condé – this from La Brèche – these from others of the Protestant party. Cast your eyes over them? Of whom do they speak? Is it of Henry of Navarre? Or is it of the Duke of Alençon? Whom do they look to as their chief and future King?"

"Philip, forgive me – I have wronged you," said the vacillating Duke, as he turned over these documents from members of the conspiracy that had been formed in his own favour. "But, gracious Virgin! – I now remember my mother knows all – she is fearfully incensed against you. She spoke of your arrest."

"Already!" exclaimed La Mole. "Then it is time to act! I would not that it had been so soon. But Charles is suffering – he can no longer wield the sceptre. Call out the guard at once. Summon your fiends. Seize on the Louvre."

"No – no – it is too late," replied the Duke; "my mother knows all, I tell you. No matter whether for me or for another, but you have dared to attack the rights of my brother of Anjou – and that is a crime she never will forgive."

"Then act at once," continued his favourite, with energy. "We have bold hearts and ready arms. Before to-night the Regency shall be yours; at Charles's death the Crown."

"No, no – La Mole – impossible – I cannot – will not," said Alençon in despair.

"Monseigneur!" cried La Mole, with a scorn he could not suppress.

"You must fly, Philip – you must fly!" resumed his master.

"No – since you will not act, I will remain and meet my fate!"

"Fly, fly, I tell you! You would compromise me, were you to remain," repeated the Duke. "Every moment endangers our safety."

"If such be your command," replied La Mole coldly, "rather than sacrifice a little of your honour, I will fly."

"They will be here shortly," continued Alençon hurriedly. "Here, take this cloak – this jewelled hat. They are well known to be mine. Wrap the cloak about you. Disguise your height – your gait. They will take you for me. The corridors are obscure – you may cross the outer court undiscovered – and once in safety, you will join our friends. Away – away!"

La Mole obeyed his master's bidding, but without the least appearance of haste or fear.